While I think attachment theory has merits, it has also become caricatured by social media “therapy culture” and is now another form of astrology. Therapy culture often is just normalizing toxic behavior or reinterpreting toxic behavior as disordered. While Avoidants absolutely exist and I have dated one, many people who are labeled Avoidants are actually egomaniacs.

These egomaniacs simply just want the monopoly on being the one who is liked more. These types do not match with anxious attachers but rather they take advantage of people. In fact contrary to typical Avoidants, these types actually like it when their partner is vulnerable to them. They try to maintain an imbalance of trade of vulnerability in the direction of their partner, so that they can maintain control and avoid emotional risk by using emotional leverage against their partner.

The way to scare away an egomaniac then is by being intelligently empathetic to them. Once you demonstrate to the egomaniac that you can sense what they are feeling without them disclosing it to you, then you have shattered the illusion of power and control they want to have.

These people genuinely want relationships where there is an inherent lack of transparency. They feel threatened by relationships where they are not able to have a place where they can seal off their feelings from the rest of the world: including their partner.

This is why “golden retriever” is becoming somewhat of a red flag term for me to signal that you may be speaking to an egomaniac. A golden retriever is happy and positive but also not intelligent enough for their emotions to have critical weight.